What exactly DOES Atlanta need in radio?

[lilburncommunityradio]

...and that's the million dollar question!  What format would work here.  Oh, and by "working" I mean making money, entertaining listeners and making advertisers happy.  If it doesn't have ALL THREE ELEMENTS, don't bother answering because, chances are, we've all heard it before and we DO know how it will affect Q100.

As for me, I would say we need a station that is willing to take a risk and do something no other station will do in this market...create a station that appeals to as many folks as possible.  Now I understand you can't please everybody but, not so many years ago, stations would take the best of whatever was hot and play it as their format.  That was the beginnings of popular music (Elvis, Herb Alpert, The Beatles, Frankie Laine, Ray Stevens, etc.)

Music was collected from all formats and commercial time was limited.  Listeners were considered to be gold and to be treated as such.  Advertisers were also.  Unfortunately, we all have the need for greed and so good business gave way to making more money.  So, maybe we can return to a format that mixes some of the best of pop, rap, R & B, Jazz, Classical, Oldies or whatever.  If done with the listener in mind, maybe...

I would throughly agree. This would be so refreshing to hear.. Herb Alpert?? What a name from the past and I truly think that with the Re-Release of almost all of his old product, that would be neat and make commercial radio something to listen to again.

[bdcsi]

Just an opinion, but with all the recent (last 10 years) FM move ins there may be enough stations in the market to warrant some kind of niche programming.  I think a combo Talk and Rock/Jazz  that offered some day parted programming.. softer rock mid days early afternoons transitioning to harder stuff later on, then real Jazz at night.. think a combination of old GST and 94Q... get the Falcons away from CBS... I too would love to hear Tom Hughes back on the radio.  just an idea

BD

[Plum]

All right, I've had this great idea on what to do with WNNX 99.7, so here goes:  Atlanta needs an oldies station.  Can we all agree on that?  Well why doesn't Cumulus turn the 99.7 frequency to oldies.  No, not the tired old motown/ beach boys, byrds tired good time great oldies format.  How bout one that spans b/t 1968 to 1983.  Make it about 60 percent 70s (like pop 70s which includes a little rock, some soul and a little crossover country, like the top 40 used to be); 30 percent early 80s and the rest late 60s (say, age of aquarius, 5th dimension).  have a 70s at 7 in the am and pm drives.  have LIVE local djs at all times, bring back the request line, and actually take requests!  they'd have mid 30s to mid 50s demographics sewn up in an era where very shortly most people will be over 40!  and have an expansive playlist much like the old lake 102 did.  What do you think?  it's got to get more buzz than what 99x is bringin' in these days.

[Nate Wesley]

Progressive talk (not necessarily Air America Radio) on on an HD2 feed. 

[IT_Guru]

All right, I've had this great idea on what to do with WNNX 99.7, so here goes:  Atlanta needs an oldies station.  Can we all agree on that?  Well why doesn't Cumulus turn the 99.7 frequency to oldies.  No, not the tired old motown/ beach boys, byrds tired good time great oldies format.  How bout one that spans b/t 1968 to 1983.  Make it about 60 percent 70s (like pop 70s which includes a little rock, some soul and a little crossover country, like the top 40 used to be); 30 percent early 80s and the rest late 60s (say, age of aquarius, 5th dimension).  have a 70s at 7 in the am and pm drives.  have LIVE local djs at all times, bring back the request line, and actually take requests!  they'd have mid 30s to mid 50s demographics sewn up in an era where very shortly most people will be over 40!  and have an expansive playlist much like the old lake 102 did.  What do you think?  it's got to get more buzz than what 99x is bringin' in these days.

Sounds like you are describing WCBS'FM.  I'd rather see CBS bring the format back to Atl before Cumulus.  I think CBS does oldies better than Cumulus does.  If Cumulus were to bring oldies back it would sound just like Fox 97 and Cool 105.7 did.

[atlradiofan2]

format is not the answer. Throw away formulation and provide local content. Radio isn't competing with other stations for listeners, they are competing with ipods with 10,000 song libraries and videos they are competing with 200 station satellite receivers with every possible niche covered. If the solution continues to be tweaking formats, rotating DJs, and 'blowing up' formats to hold onto a small share radio will lose.

In my humble opinion radio should look to deliver what I can't get on an ipod or a national satellite feed. Make me want to turn off my own mix of favorite songs with no commercials to get content I can't get anywhere else.

[Neil Millman]

format is not the answer. Throw away formulation and provide local content. Radio isn't competing with other stations for listeners, they are competing with ipods with 10,000 song libraries and videos they are competing with 200 station satellite receivers with every possible niche covered. If the solution continues to be tweaking formats, rotating DJs, and 'blowing up' formats to hold onto a small share radio will lose.

In my humble opinion radio should look to deliver what I can't get on an ipod or a national satellite feed. Make me want to turn off my own mix of favorite songs with no commercials to get content I can't get anywhere else.

Next to me, you are the smartest person on this board.

[Marv-L.A.]

Take it away from Wall Street and the beancounters, and put it in the hands of people who actually know what entertaining and compelling radio should sound like.

[RADIO TRUTH]

The answer is to recreate WLKQ, Buford, so we can hear how the Joseph family runs a radio station and we can hear a puker like Len Anthony on-the-air. 

[swmaphox]

I'll second the WLKQ

during the end of their english days you could request any song at their website and it'd get played within an hour

even though they were "70's" format you' be able to get in any oldie they played which was very cool

I'd really like to see a station though with a mix of oldies and classic rock tho

that and TRG back on the air...I mean, while Im wishing and all